CPJ HOF Recognition 10/28

GTFLETCH said:
Willie Fritz has the two and three stars in Tulane winning, and Jamey Chadwell is proving his system can win at multiple FBS locations with two and three stars. Georgia Tech would be wise to start their. Oh wait, the new AD tried, but the messy boosters situation that back stabbed the AD from hiring Willie Fritz to keep their "guy" as HC, got in the way.

Give the new AD some time and allow him to go all in on Corporate Dollars, to get the Booster situation under control. The great thing is the AD will be able to turn this around. Think about this Bobby Ross, George O'Leary and Paul Johnson were not Tech "guys" or alumni. All three had success on the Flats, the AD will be able to make his hire after next season.
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Bobby Dodd was not a "Tech guy" either.
 
rocky top buzz said:
Reality is that is what it is going to take to get GT to a competitive state. Going to have to do something to outsmart the opponent because it is difficult to recruit the talent to out-physical them.

And this is nothing new, I don't know how accurate this is but you go back to Dodd's oft-shared speeches before the uga games " "Now let me tell you what is going to happen today. That Georgie team is going to come running out of the tunnel screaming and crying. They will be foaming at the mouth and smashing one another upside the head just to get warmed up. A couple of them will throw up on the sidelines for good measure. We will not do any of that. I do not want to see tears in your eyes. While they are wasting energy we will conserve ours. We will direct our energy into constructive action. I have told you they are bigger, faster, and tougher than you. All that is true, but we do have one advantage. We are Smarter."

Whether it's running the option, air raid, whatever it is Tech is going to have to be different than trying to have 350 lb lineman and 5 star WDE's. I think we saw that with CPJ. Sometimes it works great (Orange Bowl) and sometimes it fails (MTSU). But no one would disagree that we were successful and had an identity.
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This
 
GTFLETCH said:
If you add George O'Leary's record (52 - 33) with Bobby Ross record you get (31 - 26 - 1) you get Paul Johnsons record of 83-59-1 (with a tie) 7 of the top ten season are from those three Coaches. It is clear to me what Paul Johnson produced on the Flats for as long as he did in the Modern Era is impressive and often under stated.
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Paul Johnson - 11 Seasons - 83-60 (two of nine- 10 win season)

Bobby Ross/George O'Leary 12 Seasons - 83-59-1 (two of nine- 10 win season)

Combine all Three HCs: 13 Seasons: 166-119-1 (4 of 9 Ten win seasons in program history)

Simply amazing what Paul Johnson accomplished on the FLATS! It when you add up Bobby Ross, George O'Leary, and Paul Johnson it has been real dark times since Clown Collins was hired.
 
coit said:
That's like 16-0 in any other league. ACC speed.

And they are gonna build the Paul Hewitt statue right next to the Paul Johnson statue. It will be called Two Pauls.
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Two Pauls . . . LOL! That's a great reference.

And in between the statues they can place a new sculpture of Two Balls in a Vise, with one being a football and the other a basketball. Both painted blue, of course.
 
GTFLETCH said:
Paul Johnson - 11 Seasons - 83-60 (two of nine- 10 win season)

Bobby Ross/George O'Leary 12 Seasons - 83-59-1 (two of nine- 10 win season)

Combine all Three HCs: 13 Seasons: 166-119-1 (4 of 9 Ten win seasons in program history)

Simply amazing what Paul Johnson accomplished on the FLATS! It when you add up Bobby Ross, George O'Leary, and Paul Johnson it has been real dark times since Clown Collins was hired.
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It should be noted, Chan had about the same winning %, so there is no excuse for not winning at GT
 
If you live within an hour of campus and you're not attending the game on Saturday, you damn well better have a good excuse. Paul Johnson gave us more than we could ever thank him for. The least you can do is show up and give him a round of applause at the game on Saturday. Legend.
 
Johnson was a great game manager, always on top of things and generally made good quick decisions. That UNC game is a good example, he was pissed but kept his composure and kept calling plays.

Collins horrible game manager and Key not good. Key punted twice WITHIN OUR OPPONENT'S 40 last year. Sorry, Key may have strengths but is just not a quick-witted guy
 
Paul Johnson to hear cheers from Georgia Tech once more
November 10, 2018 Atlanta - Georgia Tech head coach Paul Johnson instructs quarterback TaQuon Marshall in the first half against the Miami at Bobby Dodd Stadium on Saturday, November 10, 2018. HYOSUB SHIN / HSHIN@AJC.COM

Caption
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
KEN SUGIURA BLOG
By Ken Sugiura
3 hours ago

Five years into retirement after a superior coaching career, Paul Johnson returned to Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium on Saturday at the U.S. Naval Academy.
Johnson was there to be honored for his impending induction into the College Football Hall of Fame. Waiting on the sideline with Navy athletic director Chet Gladchuk as the first quarter came to a close on a windy afternoon, Johnson shared a hunch with his former boss about the Midshipmen’s opponent, Air Force.

“I told the AD, ‘When they flip (directions) and they get the wind, they’re going to throw it over Navy’s head,’” Johnson said.

On the first play of the second quarter, Air Force quarterback Zac Larrier dropped back from his 6-yard line and threw a deep ball over the Navy secondary for a 94-yard touchdown pass, the opening score in a 17-6 win for the Falcons.
“And (Gladchuk) looked at me and he goes, ‘Can we pay you to stand down here?’” Johnson said. “I’m like, ‘Nah, I’m through with that.’”

The pull of the game hasn’t completely left the relentlessly competitive Johnson since stepping down from Georgia Tech at the end of the 2018 season.

“That’s the kind of stuff I miss, the strategy part,” Johnson said in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I really miss the players, the interaction with the players. But I’ve been fortunate; a lot of the players stay in touch.”
Following on-field recognitions at Navy last week and Georgia Southern on Thursday – the two other schools where Johnson worked as a head coach in a 40-year coaching career, Johnson will be honored by Georgia Tech on Saturday during its game against North Carolina at Bobby Dodd Stadium. It will be the first time that Johnson has returned to the stadium where he served as head coach from 2008-18 and led the Yellow Jackets to an ACC championship, four ACC Coastal Division titles and nine bowl trips.

Aside from Tech’s bowl game in Detroit in December 2018 following his announcement to step down, this will be the first opportunity for Tech fans to honor Johnson en masse. Anything other than a warm, enthusiastic greeting would be a surprise. It will be a moment well-deserved.
“I’m excited to come back,” he said. “I had some great years there. I had a chance to work with a lot of great players and a lot of good people, and I’m excited to be back. I appreciate the honor.”
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When he made his decision to step down, Johnson remarked that history would judge his 11 seasons leading the Jackets. The first five since then have cast a favorable light on his tenure. Tech’s best record in the four full seasons since his departure was 5-7, last season with then-interim Brent Key. The Jackets are 3-4 entering Saturday’s game.
“I’m proud of what we accomplished there,” Johnson said. “We’ll just let it stand at that.”
Johnson has continued to follow Tech from his home in Linville, North Carolina, in the western part of the state. Key has reached out to him with invitations to speak with the team, requests that he has appreciated but been unable to fulfill yet.
“I hope that they can get the thing turned around,” he said. “I really do. But I know how hard it is.”
The challenges of winning at Tech were a subtext throughout his tenure. Battles to raise money, improve facilities, increase the assistant-coach salary pool, add staff and work with admissions were constant. Johnson called the Tech job “absolutely, no question” the most difficult of his three head-coaching positions.
And yet, the Jackets perennially were one of the better teams in the ACC. While the game and business of college football have changed drastically, it was less than a decade ago (2014) that the Jackets won 11 games, beat Clemson and Georgia in back-to-back games (neither had yet to become the game’s dominant powers, but both still finished in the top 15), won the Orange Bowl going away, finished ranked with a No. 8 ranking and ranked in the top 20 in total offense.
Johnson arrived at Tech from Navy with questions about whether his spread-option offense would work at the power-conference level. The body of work, to say nothing of the Hall of Fame recognition, answers the question. He was asked if he had accomplished what he set out to do at Tech.
“With the exception of getting into the College Football Playoff – I would have liked to have done that,” Johnson said. “But we did win an ACC championship, even if they said we didn’t (because of NCAA sanctions that seemed overly harsh). We went to two Orange Bowls and that kind of thing. So, yeah.”
The memories return easily. Quarterback Joshua Nesbitt’s fourth-and-inches conversion in overtime against Wake Forest in 2009 to help advance the Jackets toward the ACC title. B-back Jonathan Dwyer scoring the game-winning touchdown in the ACC title game the same year against Clemson on a play that Johnson drew up on the sideline. In a 2014 game against Georgia Southern, a touchdown pass by quarterback Justin Thomas to A-back Deon Hill to win the game in the final minute.
“That team got along as well as any team I ever coached,” Johnson said of the Orange Bowl champion 2014 team. “They really liked each other and got along great. They were a fun bunch to be around.”
With the games now in the past, Johnson’s life in the North Carolina mountains, not far from his boyhood home in Newland, revolves around rounds of golf with a group of friends. He and his wife, Susan, have begun to spend winters in Arizona, where their daughter, Kaitlyn Sabrowsky, continues to perform as an opera singer but also has earned a doctorate in vocal performance and now teaches and gives private lessons.
Their winters in Arizona have provided Johnson with a new fix for his competitive itch – playing poker in area casinos.
“It’s fun because you’ve got all those guys who play professionally, and you can sit in there and play with them,” he said. “Sometimes they don’t know how to handle guys that aren’t very smart like me.”

Johnson will be inducted in December in Las Vegas. He’ll be one of 230 coaches in the game’s century-plus history to have earned the honor, joining Tech legends John Heisman, William Alexander and Bobby Dodd. (Georgia’s Mark Richt is part of Johnson’s class.)
Along with his run at Tech, Johnson won two Division I-AA (now FCS) national championships at Georgia Southern and achieved a 45-29 record in six seasons at Navy (including 43-19 in his final five seasons) after it had been 1-20 the two seasons before his arrival.
“I’m awfully proud of (his induction),” he said. “I think it validates your career. To go in on the first ballot was even more special. I think it goes to show that people all around, other people recognized that you did a pretty good job at the places you coached.”
On Saturday, an important constituency, one that probably didn’t fully recognize what it had in Johnson, can voice its approval.
 
coit said:
2015 was a strong year with two teams in the Top 10.
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The Champ said:
You’d think a Collins could have landed a team on here given his specialty was 9 loss seasons.

Just another area where Gef can’t measure up to Johnson.
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I recall the running joke here that year was that it was the best 2-3, 2-4. 2-5…3-9 win team in the country.
 
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